322 JIMMY CORRIGAN: THE SMARTEST KID ON EARTH
In addition to his comics work, Jackson became a respected scholar of Texas history,
especially early maps. As his expertise in this area developed, Jackson began to write and
speak on the topic, eventually publishing several major books on it. Jackson’s historical
graphic novels have been compared with the work of novelist Larry McMurtry, combining
evocation of the past with social questioning and philosophical depth. Jackson’s style
was distinctive, beginning with his psychedelic work that, despite its fl ights of fancy,
always retained physicality reminiscent of the work of Heinrich Kley. For his historical
novels, Jackson combined this with sweeping compositions and realistic detail, drawn in
part from We s t e r n artists like Remington and Russell and the cinematography of John
Ford. Jackson completed his fi nal works despite suff ering from a progressive disease
that eventually limited his ability to draw.
Selected Bibliography: Jackson, Jack. Optimism of Youth: Th e Underground Work of
Jack Jackson. Seattle: Fantagraphics, 1991; Witek, Joseph. Comic Books as History: Th e
Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar. Jackson: University
Press of Mississippi, 1990.
Christopher Couch
JAXON. See Jackson, Jack
JIMMY CORRIGAN: THE SMARTEST KID ON EARTH is writer and artist Chris Ware’s
magnum opus, fi rst published in graphic novel form by Pantheon in 2000 after slowly
taking shape in comic strips that had appeared in various locations, including the Chi-
cago weeklies New City and Th e Chicago Reader , and especially in Ware’s unique comic
book series Th e Acme Novelty Library, fi rst published by Fantagraphics in 1994: the long
concluding section of Jimmy Corrigan appeared in Acme #14 in 1999. Once the extended
storyline of almost 400 pages was collected into an intricately designed, brick-shaped
book, Jimmy Corrigan became one of the fi rst examples of a graphic novel, following Art
Spiegelman’s groundbreaking Maus to command mainstream recognition as a serious
work of literature. Cited on many “Best of the Year” lists, Jimmy Corrigan was awarded
an American Book Award and the Manchester Guardian’s First Book Award in 2001
following a previous steady accumulation of prizes from the comics industry.
Given its extraordinary formal complexity as both a comic and an artifact, the story
told by Jimmy Corrigan is misleadingly simple: painfully shy, middle-aged Jimmy Cor-
rigan works in an anonymous Chicago offi ce, fi elding hectoring phone calls from his
mother. After he receives an unexpected note from his father, who abandoned his family
long ago, Jimmy travels to meet the old man in Michigan, in eff ect for the fi rst time, on
Th anksgiving weekend. Following their brief, awkward reunion, the father dies while
Jimmy is becoming acquainted with his previously unknown half-sister Amy. Any such
summary of the basic story of Jimmy Corrigan is misleading, since Ware’s work unfolds
incrementally, though minutely rendered actions, or through long fl ashbacks into the
Corrigan family’s past, at times set against the elaborately rendered 1893 World’s
